Two by Two

I am in multiple yahoo groups, and I know from those that a lot of quilters only work on one project at a time. I also know I far from the only one who works on multiple projects at once. In case any of you are the one-at-a-time type person, but you want to know what it's like to work on multiple projects at once, here you go.

Since sewing time is at a premium for me, and I often only get 15-20 minutes to sew at a time, I sew all of the next steps on both quilts, chain piecing along until I'm out of pieces. This pile took three days of short sessions to sew. In this case, for the log cabin quilt I sewed on the last light colored log on each block, as well as sewing a white square onto the longer dark log. For RRCB, I was sewing the fifth HST onto the others, and sewing the triangles on for the pieced border. I really never have problems with the pieces getting tangled, they pile up pretty neatly.

After I ran out of pieces to sew, I cut them all apart at the ironing board. The pieces for RRCB are on the left, and the log cabin pieces on the right. Next step is to get all of these pressed, and then I can concentrate on sewing the next steps. For the log cabin, I have two more dark logs to add to each block (I'll press after each log) and on RRCB, the sub-units are all together for the main block, so I will start assembling the blocks. I can only work on assembling one or two blocks at a time for RRCB, or I will get confused, but I can continue working on the pieced borders until they are together. The string blocks will have to wait for later. When I get all the main blocks for RRCB together, I will probably switch to a different second project. I will make all the string blocks later, when I start working on my string Christmas stockings again.

Perhaps this gives you a better idea of what it's like to work on multiple projects at once. I am pretty good at keeping things straight, but I do have things I scale back on, like assembling the RRCB blocks. It all comes down to your comfort level, and what works for you. I feel a lot more productive when I work on more than one thing at once. Others may just feel overwhelmed and confused. Isn't that the great thing about quilting, it's versatile, and everyone that wants to quilt can do it their own way, whatever works best for their situation?